JAZZBO NOTES ESSENTIAL RECORDING
Rating: 
Talk about a crime! Merry-Go-Round is a spectacular recording, with a cast of characters that would make any true jazz fan’s mouth water: Chick Corea and Jan Hammer on keys; Steve Grossman, Joe Farrell and Dave Liebman on reeds; Don Alias on percussion; Elvin Jones on drums; rounded out with Gene Perla on bass and Yoshiaki Masuo on guitar. And yet, Merry-Go-Round has yet to be released on CD, with the exception of the out of print Mosaic box set of Elvin’s Blue Note years. Worse still, Merry-Go-Round is almost impossible to find even as a used LP!
Gene Perla’s composition, ‘Round Town has an attractive, oddly metered line, voiced for two saxophones. Steve Grossman and Dave Liebman burn on their short solos, with loads of pentatonics, some altissimo, and flurries of notes. Perla plays funky, chunky lines on acoustic bass. Yoshiaki Masuo excels in providing color accents on guitar, and Jan’s comps on piano are nice and warm. Great tune.
Dave Liebman’s Brite Piece has a descending root motion in the A section, and a Latin vamp on the bridge. Elvin keeps the rhythm roiling in his patented manner. The way he canters during the Latin section is a thing of beauty. Jan Hammer’s tasteful, hyperaware solo on piano makes me sad that he didn’t stick with jazz, even if he did end up doing some great work with Jeff Beck. Liebman is predictably fine in his solo.
Jan Hammer’s Lungs just blows you away with how hard it swings. Hammer just kills with the way he chops up the rhythms in his solo. The way Perla walks and the unconventional way Elvin grooves with him shows that they were one of jazz’s great unsung rhythm sections.
Elvin changes things up a little with the Johnny Mandel standard A Time For Love. It’s pure lyricism, with Joe Farrell’s unmatched tone on flute, Elvin playing softly on brushes, and Perla’s sumptious tone on bass. Chick Corea comps on piano delicately support Farrell, and Yoshiaki Masuo expertly adds color on guitar. Just beautiful.
On Tergiversation, both Jan Hammer and Chick Corea play electric piano, somehow never getting in each other’s way. Their dialog makes you wished these two keyboard giants could have played together more often. Elvin and Perla swing behind these two matchlessly. Another great tune. Don Alias adds incredible color on congas, not just simply playing the beat, but commenting on the precedings.
I could go on, but you get the point. If the date ended there, it would be essential.
Here’s my advice: beg, borrow or steal to get the Mosaic box set of Elvin’s Blue Note years. If you can’t manage that, pray that Blue Note does the obvious and issues Merry-Go-Round on CD.
I have the LP and agree that it is a great recording.
I’m listening to “Lungs” right now on the John Abercrombie “Timeless” album (Jan Hammer, John Abercrombie, and Jack de Johnette). I don’t even know what to write about this piece, it’s quite mindblowing, a truly massive amount of music coming from these 3 men. Hammer’s other composition on this album, “Red and Orange” is also very beautiful, more mainstream than “Lungs” but still full of the usual Hammer energy. I can only imagine what it must have been like to hear these pieces performed live. My god so much good music came out of the early 70’s.
You bet. If you want to check out more of my picks for essential 70s records, copy this into your URL: http://jazzbonotes.com/index.php?s=%2Bessential+%2B1970s
I’m having a field day looking at your other threads! Sorry for my flurry of comments but I’m rarely in contact with other people who are deeply into jazz, especially 1970’s jazz.
Nothing to be sorry about. I’m thrilled to get comments. By the way, as a way of thanking you for your interest in my site, I’d like to recommend another site (not my own) that catalogs the releases of the German MPS label: http://mps-love.blogspot.com/. This label is a motherlode of fantastic 70s jazz that I had never heard of up to about six months ago. I especially recommend the works of Wolfgang Dauner, Albert Mangelsdorff, Association PC, Jasper van’t Hof, and Zbigniew Seifert.